Three Men and a Maid Part 7

"Not just now, thanks. I must be getting back to my room to finish unpacking. After lunch, perhaps."

"I will be there. By the way, you know my name, but...."

"Oh, mine?" She smiled brightly. "It's funny that a person's name is the last thing one thinks of asking. Mine is Bennett."

"Bennett!"

"Wilhelmina Bennett. My friends," she said softly as she turned away, "call me Billie!"

CHAPTER THREE

For some moments Sam remained where he was staring after the girl as she flitted down the pa.s.sage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics always have an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a little dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to readjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening to Eustace Hignett's story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an unflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her engagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin had been short of the necessary wedding garment. He had, indeed, thought a little smugly how different his G.o.ddess of the red hair was from the object of Eustace Hignett's affections. And how they had proved to be one and the same. It was disturbing. It was like suddenly finding the vampire of a five-reel feature film turn into the heroine.

Some men, on making the discovery of this girl's ident.i.ty, might have felt that Providence had intervened to save them from a disastrous entanglement. This point of view never occurred to Samuel Marlowe. The way he looked at it was that he had been all wrong about Wilhelmina Bennett. Eustace, he felt, had been to blame throughout. If this girl had maltreated Eustace's finer feelings, then her reason for doing so must have been excellent and praiseworthy.

After all ... poor old Eustace ... quite a good fellow, no doubt in many ways ... but, coming down to bra.s.s tacks, what was there about Eustace that gave him any license to monopolise the affections of a wonderful girl? Where, in a word, did Eustace Hignett get off? He made a tremendous grievance of the fact that she had broken off the engagement, but what right had he to go about the place expecting her to be engaged to him? Eustace Hignett, no doubt, looked upon the poor girl as utterly heartless. Marlowe regarded her behaviour as thoroughly sensible. She had made a mistake, and, realising this at the eleventh hour, she had had the force of character to correct it. He was sorry for poor old Eustace, but he really could not permit the suggestion that Wilhelmina Bennett-her friends called her Billie-had not behaved in a perfectly splendid way throughout. It was women like Wilhelmina Bennett-Billie to her intimates-who made the world worth living in.

Her friends called her Billie. He did not blame them. It was a delightful name and suited her to perfection. He practised it a few times. "Billie ... Billie ... Billie...." It certainly ran pleasantly off the tongue. "Billie Bennett." Very musical. "Billie Marlowe." Still better. "We noticed among those present the charming and popular Mrs. 'Billie' Marlowe."

A consuming desire came over him to talk about the girl to someone. Obviously indicated as the party of the second part was Eustace Hignett. If Eustace was still capable of speech-and after all the boat was hardly rolling at all-he would enjoy a further chat about his ruined life. Besides, he had another reason for seeking Eustace's society. As a man who had been actually engaged to marry this supreme girl, Eustace Hignett had an attraction for Sam akin to that of some great public monument. He had become a sort of shrine. He had taken on a glamour. Sam entered the state-room almost reverentially with something of the emotions of a boy going into his first dime museum.

The exhibit was lying on his back staring at the roof of the berth. By lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland scenes and objects he had contrived to reduce the green in his complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to say that he felt debonair. He received Sam with a wan austerity.

"Sit down!" he said. "Don't stand there swaying like that. I can't bear it."

"Why, we aren't out of the harbour yet. Surely you aren't going to be sea-sick already."

"I can issue no positive guarantee. Perhaps if I can keep my mind off it ... I have had good results for the last ten minutes by thinking steadily of the Sahara. There," said Eustace Hignett with enthusiasm, "is a place for you! That is something like a spot! Miles and miles of sand and not a drop of water anywhere!"

Sam sat down on the lounge.

"You're quite right. The great thing is to concentrate your mind on other topics. Why not, for instance, tell me some more about your unfortunate affair with that girl-Billie Bennett I think you said her name was."

"Wilhelmina Bennett. Where on earth did you get the idea that her name was Billie?"

"I had a notion that girls called Wilhelmina were sometimes Billie to their friends."

"I never call her anything but Wilhelmina. But I really cannot talk about it. The recollection tortures me."

"That's just what you want. It's the counter-irritation principle.

Persevere and you'll soon forget that you're on board ship at all."

"There's something in that," admitted Eustace reflectively. "It's very good of you to be so sympathetic and interested."

"My dear fellow ... anything that I can do ... where did you meet her first, for instance?"

"At a dinner...." Eustace Hignett broke off abruptly. He had a good memory and he had just recollected the fish they had served at that dinner-a flabby and exhausted looking fish, half sunk beneath the surface of a thick white sauce.

"And what struck you most forcibly about her at first? Her lovely hair, I suppose?"

"How did you know she had lovely hair?"

"My dear chap, I naturally a.s.sumed that any girl with whom you fell in love would have nice hair."

"Well, you are perfectly right, as it happens. Her hair was remarkably beautiful. It was red...."

"Like autumn leaves with the sun on them!" said Marlowe ecstatically.

"What an extraordinary thing! That is an absolutely exact description.

Her eyes were a deep blue...."

"Or, rather, green."

"Blue."

"Green. There is a shade of green that looks blue."

"What the devil do you know about the colour of her eyes?" demanded Eustace heatedly. "Am I telling you about her, or are you telling me?"

"My dear old man, don't get excited. Don't you see I am trying to construct this girl in my imagination, to visualise her? I don't pretend to doubt your special knowledge, but after all green eyes generally do go with red hair and there are all shades of green. There is the bright green of meadow gra.s.s, the dull green of the uncut emerald, the faint yellowish green of your face at the present moment...."

"Don't talk about the colour of my face! Now you've gone and reminded me just when I was beginning to forget."

"Awfully sorry! Stupid of me! Get your mind off it again-quick! What were you saying? Oh, yes, this girl. I always think it helps one to form a mental picture of people if one knows something about their tastes-what sort of things they are interested in, their favourite topics of conversation, and so on. This Miss Bennett now, what did she like talking about?"

"Oh, all sorts of things."

"Yes, but what?"

"Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that which first drew us together."

"Poetry!" Sam's heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount of poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and sixpence for the last line of a limerick in a compet.i.tion in a weekly paper, but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his long suit. Still there was a library on board ship and no doubt it would be possible to borrow the works of some standard poet and bone them up from time to time.

"Any special poet?"

"Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence on Spring, did you?"

"No. What other poets did she like besides you?"

"Tennyson princ.i.p.ally," said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiver in his voice. "The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls of the King!"

"The which of what?" enquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket and shooting out a cuff.

"The Idylls of the King. My good man, I know you have a soul which would be considered inadequate by a common earthworm, but you have surely heard of Tennyson's Idylls of the King?"

"Oh, those! Why, my dear old chap; Tennyson's Idylls of the King! Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson's Idylls of the King? Well, really! I suppose you haven't a copy with you on board by any chance?"

"There is a copy in my kit-bag. The very one we used to read together. Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don't want to see it again."

Sam prospected among the shirts, collars and trousers in the bag and presently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on the lounge.